This morning I heard an NPR journalist say in elegant, educated accents that Julian Assange “has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for three years.” When I looked at the NPR site, I saw that a copy editor had changed “holed up” to “hiding out” in the transcript. Other news sources don’t … Read more
A reader dislikes this commonly heard idiom: This is a losing battle, I’m sure. I constantly hear – and am annoyed by – people expressing reservations about something with phrases like “It’s not that big of a deal,” or “It’s not that good of a movie” etc. As far as I know, the “of” is … Read more
A reader who lives in Cardiff, Wales wants to know more about the word maven: In the last fortnight or so I’ve twice seen a word I’ve never come across before (and I read a lot!). The word is ‘maven’, and I’ve encountered it in the self-development context. I’ve looked it up and it seems … Read more
Readers and listeners have enjoyed short fiction since antiquity, but the Web reveals an enthusiastic surge of interest in it, along with various terms to describe it. The traditional term for fiction shorter than a novelette (7,500—20,000 words) is “short story.” In the old days, short stories in print magazines averaged about 7,500 words. Some … Read more
A reader asked me about the use of the transitive verb peruse: I have a question please. On the National Geographic Facebook page, they wrote “Today marks the third Earth-year since NASA’s Curiosity rover made its nail-biting descent through Mars’ thin atmosphere, successfully landing on its dusty surface—and plans for the next mission are in … Read more
Before the advent of ebooks, modern fiction writers concerned themselves chiefly with two lengths: long (novels) and short (short stories). With the advent of digital publishing, the terms novella and novelette have taken on a new significance. In the 17th century, the word novel referred to a book-length story shorter than a romance. Indeed, the … Read more
A headline on the National Public Radio (NPR) site prompted this post: A Self-Taught Artist Paints the Rain Forest By Memory The more common idiom for doing something that is recalled and not seen is to do it “from memory.” From is more appropriate than by in this idiom because memory may be regarded as … Read more
English boasts numerous words to convey aspects of friendship. Some are Germanic in origin and others, Latin. An early Old English word for friend was freond. The Beowulf poet tells us that Heorot (Hrothgar’s hall) was filled with friends: Heorot innan wæs freondum afylled. The opposite of Old English freond was feond: “enemy.” In modern … Read more
A reader has called my attention to the changing pronunciation of divisive: I am very active in politics and frequently watch television programs which feature political topics. One of THE most frustrating—and very common— mispronunciations I hear is with the word divisive. I was taught that it is pronounced with a ‘long i’ on the second … Read more
This may be chiefly an ESL phenomenon, but confusion exists concerning the use of the adjective demandable. My attention was drawn to the topic by this email: I am an English teacher [from Turkmenistan]. I know English pretty well; however, I confuse the words “demanding” and “demandable.” Can you help me to distinguish those words? … Read more
A reader is puzzled by a line in a movie: While watching The Bourne Ultimatum, I observed a CIA officer saying “It ends when we’ve won “. [I’m] a bit confused with this construction as it does not indicate future though the context of sentence [indicates that] the officer is talking about some time in … Read more
Sometimes readers ask for posts that would require superhuman powers on my part: Kindly produce an article containing all the exceptions for hyphenating compound adjectives, with examples. Hyphenation is not an exact science, and not all style guides agree on the rules. The chief purpose of hyphenating compound adjectives is to avoid ambiguity. Most modern … Read more